Sharing what God lays on my heart.

Archive for the tag “redeem”

Have you ever loved something? Something that brought you joy EVERY time you looked at it! Something that held meaning to your soul in which words could never describe. Something that could always make you smile.

Now imagine it’s broken. You frantically try to piece it back together. All the while making sure you have reclaimed every broken piece. You find your best glue and attempt to salvage the wreckage. After all the time and effort you look at your accomplishment only to find…well it’s no where near the beauty, joy, and grace it once was. It’s like a broken window repaired with duct tape.

DUCT TAPE…YES PICTURE THAT in your mind. Just let your imagination wonder a bit. Several cracks with duct tape going every which way. No. I’m not talking about the pretty kind you can make a dress out of these days. I’m talking about the silver. Utility. Duct tape. It’s ugly!

Well that is how my soul and my body have been feeling lately. I feel broken. Broken by the unkindness I see. Broken by the rudeness, the selfishness, the greed, the lust, the insatiable appetite of the enemy. My body feels broken. My mind feels like a frazzled over wired electric box. My heart feels heavy with the burden of all the things around me that I can not fix. I feel like the broken window. I try to fix it, but I only have silver Utility Duct tape. It’s not pretty. It doesn’t let the light in. It doesn’t sparkle. It’s just there. I am the broken window.

Thankfully my story doesn’t end there. It could. If I let it. If I choose to believe the perspective that there is no hope, I’m just the ugly broken window. But that is not the end my friends! You see I believe that the God I serve. The God who loves me. The God I call mine and I am His. I believe He is calling me to bring my brokenness to Him. I believe that He has something better in mind to restore, redeem, and repair my brokenness. I believe that as I surrender all my broken pieces He is making a beautiful mosaic of me.

You see He will take my plain ordinary broken pieces and use them for His glory! And as He does that each piece changes a little. It becomes more like the piece He intended it to be. He changes their colors, their shapes, their sizes! He’s changing me! He’s making me into the beautiful mosaic I’m meant to be! I just need to keep looking, keep talking, and keep seeking Him!

The older I get the more I am learning that I really just don’t like messes. I like things to be neat and tidy or at least have a sense of order. I AM NOT a neat freak. Just ask anyone who has seen my house or my vehicles. I can handle a mess if I know it will be cleaned up. I am learning that some messes can serve a purpose.

I have returned to an oldie, but goodie daily devotional. My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers. His post from January 31, based on the scripture of Romans 1:1, in part says this, ” Christian workers fail because they place their desire for their own holiness above their desire to know God. “Don’t ask me to be confronted with the strong reality of redemption on behalf of the filth of human life surrounding me today; what I want is anything God can do for me to make me more desirable in my own eyes.”’ Talk about a spiritual reality check. I have been mulling this one over and over and over again. I encourage you to visit this site and read the entire thing.

So I’ve been thinking and praying and talking with God. If you have read my blog maybe you will remember my first post about Messes. Well I am reminded that Jesus willfully came into our mess. Yes he came to make us clean, but He came for more than that. He continually sought out the messiest of the messes. He went to Zacchaeus, the tax collector, the woman at the well, the adulterer, the leper, and thousands more. Jesus kept getting messy. Jesus chose to serve His father and bring Him glory by redeeming the “filth” of the world in which He lived.

You see I am challenged in many ways. The first because what our human eyes and mind define as filth, worthless, disgraceful, Jesus did not. He and the Father deemed them worthy of their Love, Grace, and Redemption. Who am I to question any person’s worth?

Second, God’s agenda is not to make me like myself more. As a people pleaser I am unsettled in this truth. I want people to like me, I want God to like me, and I want to like myself. But Chambers is emphasizing that God wants me to seek the reality of His redemption (I’m still working on what that really means) not on becoming the better person I think I need to be. Can you say, “Hit by the Holy 2×4 batman.”

You mean God’s first priority isn’t to make people like me? No. NO. N.O.

God wants me to submit my agenda to His agenda. Jesus is my example. Jesus lived and breathed in the will of His Heavenly Father. He did not care what people thought, or said, and held against Him. He obeyed His father and did His fathers work. As must I learn to obey my Heavenly Father no matter what other people say, do, or think. My focus, my concern, and my priority must be a reflection of My Father’s. He tells me to seek Him and His kingdom. In doing so, He will mold me into the woman He has designed for me to be.

And the peace comes in by realizing that I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t have to measure up. I don’t have to have it all together or even figured out. God loves ALL the mess that is me and He will use ALL of it for His glory.

Friend God loves ALL the mess that is you…and He is sovereign. He will redeem you and use it ALL for His glory!

The messier the better my friend!!! Lets get messy. Not sinful…just let your hair down, take off the mask, let go of the chains…Let God redeem ALL that is you.

I have been focusing on scriptures with reference to light and God being the source of all light. The reason being our church started a segment called “Servant Spotlight” once a month to highlight a ministry in our church. I came across a great one today.
1John 1:7 “But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin.”

That verse caught me today. It intrigued me and pulled me in. I wanted to know what preceded the word but. That little word can do many things. According to my husband it can nullify an apology.
So I started digging and went to the source. I looked up the full chapter of 1John. I think the bible says it best so I will just paste it for you here. This is from The Message 1John1:5-10

“This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there’s not a trace of darkness in him.
6-7If we claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth—we’re not living what we claim. But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin.
8-10If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean break of them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. If we claim that we’ve never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God—make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God.”

I read that and I am humbled. It is a call to constantly put oneself under the blood of Christ. There is nothing in myself that is good. The only Good in me is Christ. When I try to do things even in my own good intentions, without Christ becomes a giant mess. I must submit all of myself, my talents, my thoughts, my motives, my feelings, my words under the blood of Christ. I must let Him purify me before I move out into this world and attempt to show love, compassion, or grace. I do not want to stumble around in darkness. I would much rather see with God’s perfect clarity living in His great Light.

But it doesn’t stop there. Just like in the picture above, the beam of light reaching down into the depths of a cave, God promises to redeem us. We are never so far entangled in sin that His Light can not conquer the darkness within us. All we have to do is surrender to him and acknowledge our need for Him and He is mighty to save. I am thankful that I serve such a Big God. He can clean up the messes I make tirelessly and still fill me with His grace. He brings glory to himself while restoring my soul. There is such peace in His light.